September 2017 – Party Pony Eventing

September Bruise Round-Up

September 30, 2017 2 Comments

I manage to end up with a lot of bruises. Mostly from really stupid things. Half the time, I can’t remember what they came from. September, however, was a particularly moronic month for me, so obviously the correct response is to share it with the entire internet, RIGHT?

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Upper right arm/elbow + outside right knee: Doc is crosstied in wash rack, I’m carrying small bucket with ACV rinse. He steps on the hose, I push him off, he instead steps on my foot. Proceed to, “OW GET OFF MY FOOT” and manage to trip myself backwards. Our wash rack has a 6″ or so lip on the front of it, like a curb, which in my tripping, I fall over. Doc spooks (aka pulls back like, “THIS GENIUS AGAIN”), knocking bucket out of my hand, which goes flying. At this point, I’ve landed on the curb, horse is hovering above me and bless his sweet, wonderful, sane heart, realizes nothing is going to kill him and he should freeze before he kills the small human beneath his large feet. I am soaking wet and accumulate an upper arm bruise that looks like I got socked, along with the outside of my knee. Can’t raise arm fully for three days. Praise the Lord for heating pads.

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Inside left knee: So I have a pair of Monacos that have been straight hell on Earth to break in. Everyone who is like, “oh so easy to break in, so comfortable!!” YOU. ARE. LIARS. Or mine are just defective. Anyways. I try to make myself ride in them once a week or so (and they’re getting there, I will admit), but they still haven’t dropped enough to fasten the snaps at the back of the knee. No big deal, I think, I forget to do the snaps on my schooling boots all the time. Well, post-lesson, I discover the snap somehow migrated between my knee and saddle and has left me with a quarter shaped disgusting colored bruise on the inside of my knee. Cool.

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Outside right knee/lower thigh: Leaving the arena on Tuesday, stopped to grab my water bottle off the arena rail. Doc decides he’s done and leaving right now, thanks, nevermind to the small human on board and proceeds to turn my leg into the post. Thanks buddy.

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Honorable mention goes to the 4″ scratch up my left calf I do not know the origins of and the cut on my lip courtesy dropping my phone on my face.

On the plus side, I did not fall off the mounting block this month.

Bloghop

Dream Horse

September 28, 2017 2 Comments

I love to daydream. Also, regular dream because it means I’m asleep and I love to sleep. I also have incredibly insane, but also realistic dreams so I often wakeup unsure if something happened in real life or dream life. (Examples include, but not limited to: group of friends going on spring break together… to Costco, finding 150 wooden hangers, discovering a brand new fancy washer and dryer in my condo)

So when Olivia started posting about dream horse, it was like, oh, I’ve totally got this, because uh, that’s basically a repetitive dream that got me through grad school classes (mainly statistics HI MOM LOOK I GOT THE DEGREE IT’S TOTALLY FINE). It’s also more fun than the dream where I forgot to turn an assignment in senior year of high school and the Head of Upper School is scolding me and I graduated SEVEN YEARS AGO CAN THIS STOP PLEASE.

I digress.

The problem when you ask me to design one dream horse is that I do not have one dream horse. I have lots of them*. I have many things I would like to do. But apparently this limits me to one singular horse, so ugh, fine.

So this dream horse is definitely a mare. Yeah, I know. But I love mares. Can’t help it. Always have, always will. They just understand me. Geldings are far too patient, far too easygoing for my psychotic self or something. Mares are like, “yeah, me too girl, let’s be crazy together.”

She’s dark bay with lots of chrome. I only want to have to obsessively clean like, 40% of my horse. But no blue eyes. Nope. Not acceptable. Flashy legs make my heart go pitter patter.

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Athletic enough to go play eventer (let’s dream big like someday I’ll go training or something), sane enough to go bop around bareback. Pretty mover, great conformation, magical at dressage but brave enough cross country. Good feet. Likes being oogled and primped and color-coordinated within an inch of life. Totally a show off. Like, this mare is definitely in contention for a Bravo show.

Never want to jump this. Would also take Caroline Martin’s leg length.

Not so giant she makes me look like a mosquito. Big enough that jumps don’t look like actual houses. Wears a freaking medium NORMAL tree saddle. Loads nicely, stands nicely, not prone to doing stupid things like running away, rearing, bucking or kicking.

It would also be great if she would learn my courses for me, pay for herself and never lose a shoe.

Don’t wake me up, okay?

Ride Recap

I cannot handle you, September

September 27, 2017 1 Comment

Trainer has been on me about conditioning and let’s be real, I like any excuse to go gallop on our track and live all of my Thoroughbred series childhood dreams, so I’m not complaining. Our barn is a former racehorse training barn, so we have an amazing track to go work on. I like to do a lot of my warm-ups and cool downs there too, and Doc likes it because he’s far too good at sneaking bites of grass when I’m not paying attention. Like, dude, this is why you have to do so much conditioning work – ’cause you got a booty like some rap star’s girlfriend and you won’t stop eating.

Walk warm up, two laps of trot, lap of gallop, change direction, repeat

I’ve been using the app Terra Map to help track rides and speed (I am incapable of distinguishing between fast, really fast, kind of fast and too fast). Mostly what I’m finding is that I’m the one in desperate need of conditioning here. Talk about some dead legs. Two point ‘tober, I am NOT ready for you. It doesn’t help that it’s 90+ degrees here and I’m very, very confused if I live in Indiana or South Carolina or what month it is. I’m trying not to complain because I’m downright terrified of winter, but also… I nearly killed the horse and myself on Friday.

Not actually Friday, but same facial expressions were made

We were doing this same ride routine, only it was 9am and somehow already Alabama-hot-and-humid and by the time I was done, I was pretty sure I was not going to live to see the next day. Not really that big of an issue (Go figure the fact that I lived down south for 7 years, I’m the world’s biggest baby about heat. And cold. Basically my body is horrible at regulating temperature)… except the barn’s water was turned off while they were repairing something. And my poor horse was drenched.

Twenty minutes of sponge/scrape with a glorious forgotten extra bucket of water, I felt comfortable enough to leave him standing under the fan (keep in mind, he could not have cared less this entire time and stood there eating breakfast, so I guess I’m just a paranoid helicopter mom) and downed like 94 gallons of water (jk the two water bottles in my car).

You win, Indiana September, you win.

We walked today. Nobody died. Tuesday accomplishments.

Uncategorized

Version 2.0 (Beta)

September 22, 2017 2 Comments

Once upon a time, I had a blog. And a retired horse. Then I went to grad school and then I moved… like, three times. And blog was no more.

But then here we are and it’s 2017 and I’m riding again and have a grown up job and there’s a new blog. Marescara, ’cause until this one, every horse I’ve had? Mares. Love ’em. And I’m 100% girly-girl and I adore makeup and own too many shoes and can have entire conversations on lipstick shades. There you have it.

So let’s catch up:

I’m (still) Holly. Since last time I: went to grad school, graduated, moved to South Carolina, finished a fellowship, went from human medicine to veterinary medicine, moved to Indiana (…yeah) and (the important part here) leased a horse. Yeah, back in the game.

The details? Doc is an American Saddlebred who is owned by my trainer, C. He’s all personality, takes great care of me, and takes all the jokes I manage to throw at him. And because I was inspired by all the other bloggers who are badass eventers, I said wait, that looks fun annddd… we’re eventing.

It seemed like the right time to write some things down, to see where we go and watch it all happen.

It’s good to be back, y’all.